Carp Fishing Local (in 1.5hrs or less)

While fishing in pristine lakes or rivers with a wonderful view from your swim is something that every angler prefers the reality is that these places can be far removed from your area. If you don’t have gobs of time and money to get to these places are you simply not going to fish? For me catching carp is something that is loads of fun no matter the local. Yes, I known a few people who visibly cringe at some of the places I fish, but if it is the only option then I will not pass up the opportunity to get a line in the water and a fish on the bank.

Here is a little example of such a water that I recently spent a about 1.5 hours (total) at….

A scenic little stream in the middle of the city. It’s not going to win any contests for…well…anything but has a few carp in it and some gar.

This creek has a good head of fish up to around 10lbs. It is only maybe 20ft across and is so shallow you can see the bottom in most places. After a bit of scouting along a easily accessible section it is obvious that most of the fish are in the one pool that has enough water to keep them hidden.

After putting in some pellets and boilies the day before I got the rod out while the wife was busy in town…

Normally I would fish sweet corn or bread for a quick bite but I had fished here once before and discovered that the sunfish there really like corn and bread and get to it was faster than the carp do. I opted therefore to go with CC Moore boilies and pellets fished in a little PVA bag overtop of a handful of freebies. The hook bait was a bottom a single boilie topped off with a single piece of pop-up corn.

The turtles were a bit of a problem so I opted to fish a running rig fished on a slack line so I would know if they were stealing my bait.

The first cast got some major turtle attention fairly quickly. I noticed a fish or two roll a little farther down stream so after nicking on a new pva bag of pellets I moved the rig to this new spot. After that it did not take long, with a fast run down stream. Downstream was a few snags along the shore and the carp did it’s best to hide in everyone one of them. The fight was one of the most fun I have had in some time as the water was so shallow that I could see the fish for many parts of it. While the fish was not large it gave a very good account of itself making multiple runs and really using the fish fighting abilities of my rod.

After a great fight this scrappy carp was in the net.

After all was said and done I had not even invested 2hrs in fishing and baiting this water and was rewarded with this awesome little fish. If you have a little water close to your house that you never thought about I encourage you to give it a go.